In a healthy society that has problems people will ask

what did we do to cause this. In an unhealthy society that

has problems, they say, who did this to us.

Ben Crump, Attorney for Floyd Family

Back in 2009 or 2010, I got on a bus to Washington D. C. with a radical group of activists from

Philadelphia where I lived at the time. Walking along the march route on the way to the Pentagon to place “coffins” at the entrance, I had a view of my “cell” walls. I don’t recall what bodies these coffins were meant to represent. Could have been any of the bodies murdered by neoliberal policies this US government supports. But I remember sees these Americans, dressed in black, with dark helmets, and shields. Long black shields. There to protect the order. To protect Americans, a society of “better angels.”

I always hear about these “better angels.” Media refers to them. They are out there somewhere and need only be appealed to for us to see them. They rise from where, these “better angels”?

No doubt, for me, I suspect the shooting of unarmed black men and women is to protect those who, when the crisis of racial inequality arises, need only appeal to their “better angels.” And they appear! A whole nation of white angels just appear and become easily distinguishable as the community law enforcement is to recognize and to protect.

Only I don’t see them. I don’t many black Americans do either. This movement from “angels” to “better angels” just is hard to recognize in white Americans.

Make no mistake, calling on Americans to call forth their “better angels” may have been a marketing strategy for someone like Oprah to hold on to her white women, middle and upper middle class audience, it’s not intended, however, for someone like Breonna Taylor, who, as an EMT, put her own health on the line for the great good. But you won’t hear the media referring to her as an “angel.”

The police fired eight bullets into her body while she slept. “Angels” seeing the demonic? Huh?

We live in the reality among the very real knees and feet of white supremacy that keeps our faces clamped to the ground and buries us as a humanity of no worth. Yet, in contrast to this reality, we find ourselves living alongside a dominate narrative in which white America depicts us as criminal. And you know, criminals are never angels. Ever!

I’m not going to handhold or cuddle because doing so will cost another unarmed black his or her life. But some good many Americans, police officials, politicians, corporate bankers and real estate associations, educators criminal justice administrators, and ordinary citizens, neighbors, co-workers, know better. They’re simply sadistic and enjoy the pleasure of seeing blacks squirm or become angered. It’s a good laugh you hear from those “angels,” only getting better everyday, huh?

In his last few minutes on Earth, I don’t think George Floyd recognized those four officers as an embodiment of angels. He wasn’t given enough time to wait until their “better angels” arrived on the scene. Instead, one of the white man made sure his knee on Floyd’s neck, for nine minutes, would punish Floyd for living! And should we see the other three men as angels? Apparently, their “better angels” didn’t arrive on the scene either. Is this like playing Russian Roulette where Floyd, encountering regular “angels” missed out! Too bad, George! Is that it? Is this how this narrative plays out?

According to the Los Angeles Times, “the autopsy by a doctor who also examine Eric Graner’s body found compression cut off blood to Floyd’s brain, and weight on his back made it hard to breath.”

Is this the behavior of “angels”? Or are we expected to wait. Wait, as the narrative professes, on those “better angels” to show up!

And if such nonsense runs it’s course, watch how the destroying, conquering, enslaving, and killing black people is submerged into a narrative—wait for it, black violence! Keep your eyes on those “looters.”

Well, yeah, that we must do! Keep our eyes on the looters! All four police officers killed Floyd! All four must be charged with 1st degree murder!

The taking of life is the reality of white supremacy in America! And white supremacy is nothing if not a looting machine!

It’s no surprise that African Americans see in the police anything but angels. It’s no surprise that African Americans don’t expect the rise of “better angles” from the police any time soon. In fact, never while the police is dressed to kill!

What has arisen from law enforcement is violence. Always has! What’s to be expected otherwise from a mentality that begins in the conquest of Indigenous people and aids in maintaining the enslavement of black humanity is violence. Always will!

What did the world hear when protesters were trying to be heard, “dominate the battlefield”! Dominate the battlefield! And the tear gas does just that while the rubber bullets fly, hitting protesters grieving for the dead, the many dead.

It’s war! War! The police verses the black population.

How is a group of people (police) trained to see black communities as “battlefields” expected to “serve and protect” people it’s acculturated to see as the nation’s “enemy”?

It’s time. Enough is enough! I agree with Black Lives Matter—the police must be defunded!

Black Lives Matter is calling for “an end to the systemic racism that allows this culture of corruption to go unchecked and our lives to be taken.”

And why not? Police will hide behind policies that deliberately don’t serve to protect the rights of black people.

Police spending far out paces spending for community resources and services, according to The Center for Popular Democracy.

Let’s look at the numbers: In total, $100 billion a years is spent on policing and $80 billion is spent on incarceration. This, according to Forbes, despite a drop in crime in the last 30 years!

In 2017, Oakland spent 41% of it’s budget on policing: $242.5 million. Chicago spent 39.6 % of its budget on policing: $1.46 billion. Minnesota spent 35.8 % of its budget on policing: $163.2 billion. New York spent 8.2 % of its budget on policing: $4.89 billion.

What does this money buy?

Lots of AR-15 Carbines, the same weaponry our fellow citizens bring with them to protest against the lockdown a few weeks back.

* M16 assault rifles
* Heckler and Koch MP5 (submachine guns)

In 2019, 1,004 Americans were shot and killed by these weapons that came into play in the 1950s and 1960s (no surprise there!), when black Americans were fighting for their human rights in the US and the human rights of Asians in Vietnam.

And it’s not just black American men. The Los Angeles Times reports that Latinx men and boys, black women and girls and Indigenous men, women, and children are also murdered by the police at “higher rates than their white peers.”

And police help fill the cells!

That’s what comes of increase funding to the police. That’s what comes from hiring people who haven’t a clue about who they are—their history in violence as conquerors and enslavers.

Brutality and cruelty comes from a lack of understanding America’s history of violence.

Defund the police—on the way to no such entity!